{"id":408507,"date":"2025-09-08T19:19:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T19:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/408507\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T19:19:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T19:19:09","slug":"dan-lancaster-opens-up-on-a-tough-year-at-racing-signing-for-glasgow-and-his-scotland-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/408507\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan Lancaster opens up on a tough year at Racing, signing for Glasgow and his Scotland hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The last few months, though, were understandably difficult, making it probably for the best all round when Racing elected not to retain Lancaster at the end of the season.It wasn\u2019t long before word reached <strong>Franco Smith<\/strong> that the Scottish-qualified back was a free agent and a deal was concluded to bring Lancaster to Glasgow.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a really long story but at the end of May I found out I wasn\u2019t staying at Racing for one reason \u2013 and that was because they wanted to get rid of the Lancaster name,\u201d he said. \u201cThen I got a call from Franco and it was very smooth sailing and easy. It was one conversation. I told my agent, \u2018I want to come to Glasgow\u2019 so it was easy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLast year was almost, not bittersweet as obviously you want the team to be successful, but it was an invaluable experience. Playing so much rugby in a league which is very well respected, it\u2019s huge. Playing loads of games, playing in big stadiums, and learning off people around me like Owen [Farrell] has been massive for my career.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI got picked [at fly-half] initially because Owen was injured. And the more time I had in the saddle, the more I was comfortable.\u00a0In the end, it\u2019s not every day you beat Toulouse away, beat Bordeaux at home, Clermont away.\u00a0They\u2019re pretty significant. Obviously, the end result was not where we wanted to be.\u00a0But there are some games which I\u2019ll remember for the rest of my career.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His dad\u2019s sacking at the start of the year, though, hit hard, with Lancaster feeling partially responsible for the way it came about.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere were some ridiculously tough times,\u201d admits the 24-year-old. \u201cI also knew myself that my dad wasn\u2019t happy. You could tell he wasn\u2019t happy because the team weren\u2019t putting their best foot forward. We were losing games. It was hard. When he got sacked, I took a lot of responsibility for that.\u00a0At the end of the day, he\u2019s a coach first, but he\u2019s also my dad. Everyone has feelings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, that was tough.\u00a0 Probably the hardest game was the Toulon away game [at the start of January]. I put everything into that game and we lost again. You could just see the pressure. I was broken after that game. It was definitely tough times, but definitely good learning experiences.\u00a0For me, the proudest thing was still getting picked after he\u2019d gone. I think that was almost the narrative that I was getting picked because Stuart was in charge. It was the same when Patrice was in charge as well. I think that was probably the most pleasing thing for me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople from the outside would say I was fast-tracked last year. Obviously, I was only at Ealing the year before and then moved to Racing.\u00a0You definitely had to earn the respect there in terms of proving yourself. But I don\u2019t feel like I have to prove myself to anyone here. I just feel like I need to do what I\u2019m supposed to do. I need to get my head down, graft and things will come off the back of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With his dad now embracing a new challenge with Connacht, Lancaster will now be working under a surrogate father figure in Smith. <strong>Adam Hastings, Charlie Savala <\/strong>and<strong> Duncan Weir<\/strong> will provide competition for the No.10 shirt but, should Lancaster impress, it shouldn\u2019t be long before he is pushing his way into <strong>Gregor Townsend<\/strong>\u2019s Scotland plans, too.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d be lying if I said [the chance to represent Scotland] wasn\u2019t [part of the reason for coming],\u201d said the former Scotland under-18 international. \u201cObviously, I\u2019m Scots qualified through my grandma who\u2019s from Dumfries. It would be a massive honour to represent Scotland. For me, in the short term, it\u2019s just gaining respect of teammates and coaches here and making the most of it if I get a chance with Scotland.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had a chat with Gregor just before our last game of the season. Obviously, they went with a different route at the time and I wished them good luck for the summer tour. It was good to have a conversation, just talk rugby and talk my game as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lancaster has also turned out for England\u2019s under-20s in the past but says there have been no recent conversations with first-team head coach <strong>Steve Borthwick.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI haven\u2019t spoken to any of them recently. Steve came in last year to Racing for a day, so it was good to have a catch-up with him.. Obviously, a lot of the coaches were my coaches at Leicester at the time.\u00a0For me, it\u2019s about playing the best rugby here to put myself in an opportunity to get picked [for Scotland]. I\u2019ve not done anything yet. We\u2019ve only played one pre-season game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve got another one on Friday [against Northampton Saints] which is massive. There\u2019s so much rugby to be played before even thinking about [Scotland]. I\u2019m so far away from thinking about it \u2013 I\u2019m still writing team calls down on my hand!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last few months, though, were understandably difficult, making it probably for the best all round when Racing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,91495,85185,918,8979,4884,11083,712,140672,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-408507","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-dan-lancaster","10":"tag-divi","11":"tag-glasgow","12":"tag-glasgow-warriors","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-racing-92","15":"tag-scotland","16":"tag-stuart-lancaster","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115170296715910573","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}